Falling to the lowest level on record during April, total U.S. housing starts were off by more than one-half from one year ago. The Commerce Department reported that total housing starts of 458,000 (AR) were down 12.8% from March after that month's 8.5% decline. Modest revisions to the series extend back to 2007 and the latest figure compares to Consensus expectations for 523,000 starts.

The decline to the record low was led by a 46.1% month-to-month drop in starts of multi-family homes to 90,000. So weak was construction of apartments and condominiums that the decline pulled the level roughly three-quarters below April of last year.

As was the case last month, there is a sign in the latest report that a bottom in the housing market may be forming. Starts of single-family homes increased 2.8% from March after two months of having been unchanged. Regardless, single-family starts remained near the record low for the series which dates back to 1959 and the latest level was down eighty percent since the peak in early-2006. During the last ten years, there has been an 84% correlation between the q/q change in single-family starts and their contribution to quarterly GDP growth.

By region, starts of single-family units in the Northeast reversed all of their March rise with a 13.6% (-34.5% y/y) decline. Starts in the Midwest, however, rose to their highest level since November (-36.6% y/y). In the South, single-family starts continued weak. They fell to another record low (-47.6% y/y) but in the West starts jumped 26.6% (-50.6% y/y).

The latest level of building permits also plumbed a new record low last month with a 3.3% decline from March. Overall, permits were down by one-half from last April. Single-family home permits, a leading indicator of starts, however, ticked up 3.6% from March (-42.3% y/y).

The housing starts figures can be found in Haver's USECON database.

U.S. Household Deleveraging and Future Consumption Growth from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco can be found here.